The Paikin Podcast - World on Edge: Is This the End of NATO?

Episode Date: April 9, 2026

Janice Stein and Steve discuss Trump’s threats to leave NATO, what that would mean for Canada, his threats to Iran, and, although Trump has sown chaos and uncertainty in world affairs, if the markets operate as a significant guardrail to his actions. They then answer some viewer questions on what will replace the old world order, if consensus can ever be achieved in global forums such as the UN on climate or AI, how drone technology has changed warfare, why the EU puts up with Hungary, what the post-communist future looks like in China, and what happens to trade deals if the United States and its Navy stops guaranteeing safe passage in international waters. They also, most importantly, discuss who has better bagels: Toronto or Montreal?   Support us: patreon.com/thepaikinpodcast Follow The Paikin Podcast: YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcastSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OhwznCIUEA11lZGcNIM4h?si=b5d73bc7c3a041b7X: x.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.social Email us at: [e-mail] 

Hi, everybody, Steve Paken here. On this episode of World on Edge, Donald Trump recently mused about the end of NATO, essentially the organization that has kept the world from entering World War III for 80 years. Could the West really continue to be the West if NATO were disbanded or the U.S. were not in it? This week, one guest only, who will answer your questions as well. Coming right up on the Paken podcast. Delighted to welcome back for her bi-weekly visit here on the Paken podcast. there's Janice Stein, the founding director of the Monk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy.

Janice, we got to start with this. When President Trump starts musing about pulling the United States out of NATO, how should we react to that? Wow. This is just a terrible own goal that the United States is inflicting on itself. He's already done the damage. When a president of the United States muses, about it and tweets about it,

he's already undermining the basic credibility that NATO has. You know, Russians read that tweet. Chinese listen to these musing. So whatever happens as we go forward,

what we call the West, the breach is widening. I was talking to European yesterday. And they said, to me, we're on a path to divorce after the double hit of Greenland and the mud slinging at NATO and at European allies. There's just a sense now, this is done.

This relationship cannot be repaired. Whatever will come in the future, the damage to NATO and to the West is a given. I wonder if it's more than a double hit, though. We've got you, and you mentioned Greenland, but there was Trump's line also about, you know, you folks at NATO were sort of sitting at the back during the war in Afghanistan while the Americans did all the heavy lifting. Just an empirically false thing to say. Correct. There was the, you know, Canadian annexation musings.

And, of course, there's the negative stuff he's had to say about NATO as it relates to other countries. Well, what his wishes for other countries are in the war in the Middle East right now. I wonder if we're at the point, though, Janice, now where the other NATO countries simply say to Donald Trump in the United States, you know what, if you want to go, go and don't let the door hit you on the ass on the way out. Are we there yet? We're probably not there yet. And for a variety of reasons because NATO doesn't speak with one voice. There are internal divisions within NATO.

and the Secretary General of NATO, Mark Ruder, a former Prime Minister of the Netherlands, deeply, deeply committed to NATO and believes that he can manage through these Trump years, two and a half Trump years left, limit the damage that will be a next president of the United States and NATO and the relationship with the United States will survive. So the problem with that is how can you be sure that the next president's going to be any sort of more global in orientation than the current one? It's not only that because of course you can't be sure. Steve, you're absolutely right. But even if that were to be the case for four years, what's changed so fundamentally is, you know, a MAGA 2.

I could be in 2032 or 2036. So that bedrock assumption that there were there were overarching shared interests and to some degree shared values between Europe and the United States, that transatlantic bridge, that's what's been undermined by Donald Trump and by the people around it. If the United States were to actually begin the process of trying to exit NATO, what would Canada be? So first of all, not going to happen. So let's just understand why. And that's why it's, you know, the way I think about this, Steve, is what's the damage from these, from the musings and the tweets and those off the cuff remarks? Why will it not happen? Because in order for the United States to withdraw from NATO, it's a treaty obligation.

That treaty was ratified by Congress. You have to have a majority, particularly. in the Senate, there is no majority. That would be enough to authorize the withdrawal of the United States from NATO. And, you know, senators dug in their heels on that to send that message to Europe. We get bipartisan Senate delegations traveling to Europe and traveling to the Indo-Pacific, effectively saying we are not going to get a formal withdrawal from NATO. And I think that's right.

We will not. So it's in a way, the problem is worse. Because if you could, you know, if you could just slam the door and move on and start to put in place the capabilities that a European alliance would need, that might be, you know, enough of a push to resolve some of the European internal arguments. But that's not what's going to happen. The United States is still going to be there in body but not in spirit. Well, that's the thing I want to follow up with you on, because, okay, you say that there's a process in place, a threshold by which, you know, the Trump administration could never reach because the Senate will never agree to leave NATO. But essentially, Donald Trump, well, you tell me if it's fair to say this, you know, spiritually, emotionally, intellectually, he's already left NATO. He didn't call any of his NATO allies before launching the war in the Middle East to get their views on it.

are we not sort of already there? That's, I think, exactly the dilemma for all the Nino members. He's out in his head. He's out in his speech. He engages no prior consultations with Nail. Look, Steve Canada was not told about this war before it started, right? And when has that happened that the, that a president of the United States would not pick up the phone and call a prime

minister in Ottawa and say we're going to do this. He didn't do that. But here's the irony. And that's the other side. When he holds that, you know, actually in his speech, in the formal speech from the White House

that we all endured this week, plus I was the only way I can describe it. And some of his scrums with the press, he said, well, you Europeans with your navies, go, go seize the oil. You need the oil. I don't need the oil. You need the oil. Go send your navies. Go secure

the Straits of Hormuz. So on the one hand, there is what amounts to this insulting language about NATO. But he turns around the next day and says, hey, guys, in NATO, go secure the straits. That's your problem, not my problem. So we had a practical, you know, we had a virtual call this week in Europe. 40 countries on the phone talking about what they need to do to secure the Straits of Hormuz after the fighting stop. Let me ask a completely ridiculous little tangential sidebar at the moment, which is, I always thought, and you just confirmed it for me, I always thought they were called the Straits of Hormuz, but lately I'm always seeing references to the Strait of Hormuz. When did they become singular? You know, I don't know the answer to that question, Steve. Generally, it's one straight.

So it's probably technically correct to call it the straight. If you, you know, if you imagine the map for a minute, there's a point of land that juts out and it's very narrow, which is what gives Iran this strategic opportunity. But forever, we've talked about the straits. We always did, yeah, in plural. Yes, we did. Yeah. But somebody probably looked at this and said, no, no, no, that's not grammatically correct. It should be the straight.

And I bet it's a newspaper editor somewhere who started this one. Well, we know that over, certainly during Trump one and now a year and a half into Trump two, he has not shown any particular interest in so-called Democratic guardrails, which in the past have, you know, have been there. sort of informally to prevent presidents from acting like dictators. But the one thing that this president does care a lot about is the stock market. And I wonder whether you think the markets are in some respect acting as a bit of a guardrail against what this president might or might not do. That's a fascinating question, Steve, because, you know, I've asked myself that repeatedly

over these last four weeks because I do think markets are guardrail for him. I do think he cares about the stock market. I do think he notices. And we have some evidence that he does even recently. I do think when countries start selling off U.S. treasury bills, he notices and pays attention. Why do I say this? Because a little noticed event during the Davos meeting

when he went to Davos and made the... made a fiery speech, frankly, about Greenland and what he would do. The sovereign wealth fund of Norway, the Norwegians, a very forward-looking policy, unlike Canada, they took, because Norway is not a federal country. So they didn't have the problem that we have. The Norwegians took the profits from the sale of oil and invested them in a sovereign wealth fund so that they in fact created, you know, wealth for future generations from this period of fossil fuels. Well, they owned a lot of treasury bills. And when the president was giving

his speech in Davos and the rhetoric on Greenland escalated, the Norwegian sovereign wealth fund start to sell off treasuries. Well, five hours later, Donald Trump had backed down. That's not a coincidence, frankly. Probably not a coincidence either, that a former governor of the Bank of Canada and former governor of the Bank of England, who knows a lot about how the sales of Treasury bills work was in the room the day before. But there you got the reaction to men. Here's the deeper puzzle to me here. And, you know, most of the market analysts I know can't really help me out on this one. The markets have significantly discount the impact of the disruption that Iran has imposed by, you know, seizing control of a choke point like this. I can't explain

why. Why are we not getting more of a market reaction than we are? It hasn't been very big. Just think about this. It's not only oil, which, you know, 20% of the world's oil goes through. It's 20% of the liquefied national, natural gas that goes through the Straits, foremost. That's in everything, Steve, from chips,

you know, helium to fertilizer. I mean, it's going to affect a broad, broad range of consumer goods. You look at what's happening in Asia. Countries already shortening working weeks. They're asking people to conserve power.

Where in the markets? it's so it's it's it's an unexplained the even the markets know something that we don't or there's a significant discount factor of the longer term effect of the events of the last four weeks so they failed us since the markets it's not that they he's not paying attention to them it's that the markets have done a poor job of forward discounting the disruption um that's going to come in the energy markets and more broadly. You know, the best analog here, just to go on about this for two more minutes, because it's such a big story, and I don't understand it. This is the biggest energy shock we've ever had, right? Bigger than 1970. They say even bigger than the OPEC ones in the 1970s.

Right. And there were two, right? Bigger, bigger. And we had a decade afterwards of stackflation, which means inflation, because of the higher prices of energy, which killed growth. So why is this different? You know, analysts have already shaved half a percentage point off U.S. projections for growth. That's big.

Where are the markets? Don't understand. Okay, let's do one more question on this. He gets up in the morning. The first thing he does, look at the markets. He cares. Let's do one more question on this before we move on. to something else and that is

I know I know you saw his tweet this morning as we sit here taping this Donald Trump and I'm going to clean it up to read it no no you have to read it because it's a presidential comment you can't clean it up Janice my mother would wash my mouth out with soap if I ever

use this language in public. It doesn't matter you're reading the president's words I hear you but well here we go the president of the United States put this statement out on truth social this morning morning. Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day all wrapped up in one in Iran. There will be nothing like it. Open the effing straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell.

Just watch in all caps. And then he finishes praise be to Allah, President Donald J. Trump. Now, I get that we're supposed to take Trump, you know, seriously, but not literally. But what do you make of that? That's a disgrace. It's a disgrace for any president of any country. It's inconceivable that a president would issue a tweet like that. It's designed to be offensive. It is offensive. You can't read the language. That tells me something. I could have, but you won't. It's a good thing you're a gentleman, and I'm not a lady. But the fact that you can't read it, Steve, tells you that it's designed to be invasive. And then at the end of it, at the end of it, I think it's the worst part of the whole thing.

It's actually not the use of the swear words. It's the, including that phrase, praise be to Allah. That is deliberately insulting to Muslims. Everywhere in the world, not only in Iran, everywhere in the world, you are trying to influence a government to come back to the table and you deliberately and intentionally insult and degrade people that you actually have to make a deal with here. That's aside from the substantive criticism I have of the strategy of what he's threatening to do. When I read that, I thought we have United States. It's no wonder the West as a concept is losing its authority and its voice.

If the leader of the West can talk like this and use language in the way that he does and viscerally insult other cultures, what moral authority does the West have anyway? I will leave that excellent rhetorical question in the ether for our viewers and listeners to consider. And we'll be back right after this. The Insurance Brokers Association of Canada is all about protection. This spring, they will be in Ottawa to advocate for a consumer-first approach to federal initiatives around natural disasters, cybersecurity, and other risks that Canadians face every day. Insurance protects families, homes, and businesses when the unexpected habits.

happens. Brokers are your trusted advisors, helping you choose the right insurance to safeguard what you value most. Canada's insurance brokers. Their slogan is, we know what's worth protecting. Janice, one of the reasons we wanted to have you on solo this week, and we normally have you on with another special guest, is that we get, you know, we've started receiving a whole bunch of comments and questions from our viewers and listeners that they want you to respond to. So, as is our custom here, We don't give you a heads up on these. You're hearing them for the first time right now. And there's some pretty smart questions here.

So I hope you brought your A game this morning, Professor Stein. Hope so, too. A lot of these questions deal with some of the themes that you and I've just been talking about. So let's get into it. Here is Alan Cresto or Cresto. I'm not sure how he pronounces his name, but here we go. Alan asks, if the old world order is not coming back, what will likely replace it?

and will consensus ever be achieved in a global forum as the UN on issues such as climate change, artificial intelligence, or territorial disputes? What do you say to Alan? It's still really two questions in there. See what's going to replace the old order that is crumbling before our eyes. A really interesting piece that Alan might want to read by Hal Brands, who takes that one on, in the current issue of foreign policy magazine. And he says, look, because nobody knows, anybody who tells you they know, has an over-inflated opinion themselves.

Yeah. So he laid out three possibilities, which I think is a great way to go. You know, fundamentally, we have, he said, look, one is we implode. And the incidence of wars goes up, violence goes up. and those who are really good at translating military power into political, it comes to prevail, but it's the war of all against all, which is not a pretty concept to think about. The second is, in fact, no, the second spheres of influence.

So the Chinese, everybody recognizes that China's dominant in Asia doesn't take China on in Asia, no matter what it does, on Taiwan. the same for the United States in its home backyard, which is North and South America. And Russia, everybody recognizes that it's got sway over. It's over at least what was the former Soviet Union and the Europeans navigate among that world very uneasily and very unhappy. That's world number two, and that's possible too.

And the third world that Hal lays out is what he calls the G2. China and the United States are the two world superpowers. That's a return to a world that we had in the 60s and the 70s. There's some rules in that world, and they create the structure of order. And how thinks that's the best of the three possible world. But he's really careful to say all three are possible, and I think that's the right answer. The second question is a harder one. Do we get a consensus?

on climate change and AI. Look, climate change is moving at such a pace, Steve. And what's happening in the Middle East right now, the energy shock? Paradoxically, I believe, is going to accelerate and put on steroids, the drive to renewables. So consensus doesn't only come from institutions. It sometimes comes from large structural forces that force changes in behavior. We got more progress on renewables in the decade after the two energy shocks in the 70s. We could very easily see the same thing again.

I read something this past week about Pakistan having moved very much gung-ho into solar power and therefore has not been adversely affected by what's going on in the Middle East right now, which is allowing them to be a bit of a middle, I guess, an honest broker in the middle. Yeah, Spain. Spain is way ahead of its European allies in greening his energy structure. So there's clear rewards now here,

Steve, for countries that have moved ahead on green energy. Contrary to what Donald Trump came to office saying, that's the irony. He does his stuff, and it conflicts with one of his other important goals, which is, you know, preserve of fossil fuel economy.

but that's the least of the contradictions. Yeah. Okay, here's one from Mike Welling, who got to us on Facebook, and Mike says, or he asks, can any of the international organizations designed to provide some moral, legal structure, or trade agreement, fairness, adherence, survive if the U.S. continues to play by its own rules

whenever it likes or sees advantage? No. Because the United States has an outside. It's raw in the two that I think he might be thinking about, the UN and the WTO, the World Trade Organization, which United States paralyzed under Trump one. But, you know, as these old not-fit-for-purpose institutions bade into obscurity, which is what I think will happen to them, we're going to see new ones stood up. they're not going to be these big, universal everybody's in the door organizations, but we're already seeing trade. You know, a new trade agreement beach in the Pacific,

which includes the Pacific countries up and down the rim. And these are really, Steve, they are coalitions of the women. It doesn't mean they're not rule-based. It doesn't mean that they're not based on fairness. they have all those attributes, they just don't include all 190 plus states. More ad hoc. What did Mark Carney call that in Davos, some kind of geometry? Variable geometry.

Variable geometry. There we go. Mike, thanks for that question, Mike, and say hello to Renee for us. Miss you, Mike. Anyway, nice to have you chiming in here. Here's a note from David Gordon. David asks, how will nations defend themselves in future when the use of drone technology appears to be unstoppable. Are we going in the right direction in rearming the country at a time that

warfare seems to be changing? Boy, is that a smart question, Steve? That is really a great question because we are in the middle of a profoundly important change in military technology and in the practice of warfare. That's not a new phenomenon in history, right? This is old, all the time technology changes. And we tend to talk about this, by the way, as an adjustment in the offense defense balance. Sometimes it's cheaper to defend. And when it's cheaper to defend, we get fewer wars because it's expensive to attack. But then people invent new technology and it becomes cheaper to attack.

And then we have, what do we got going right now? Drones are both a defensive and an offensive technology. So they're cheap, for sure. and, you know, Zelensky is in the Gulf right now because the Ukrainies who are incredibly innovative, it's just astonishing what they do. I'm lost in admiration for them. The Ukrainians have now invented a drone that can intercept other drones, but is much, much cheaper than those very expensive interceptor missiles. So what this is doing, what drone technology is doing is level.

out the differences between big, powerful militaries and smaller countries. Because even smaller countries can afford dronks. Let me do a follow-up. You know, of course, that Prime Minister of Canada, Mark Carney, has said we're about to go on a multi-billion dollar defense-oriented spending spree. You know, presumably we're not going to be putting all of that money into kind of the old-style warfare. we're going to do more cutting edge stuff, but are you concerned that we might not be spending it on the right stuff?

Yep. There are big debates going on among those of us in the country, inside government and outside government who care about this. And there are legitimate differences of opinion because we're in the middle of a revolution state, okay? And again, getting it wrong on military spending is the most dangerous thing you can get wrong. Because if you end up with wrong technology,

you're putting your country, your society at risk. I think we need less of the last generation technology, which is very big and very expensive and generally not made in Canada. And we need more of the next generation technology, which is smart technology, which is cheaper per unit, which can be made in Canada or a chunk of it can be made in Canada because we are doing a lot in the area of smart technology.

Sometimes it's hard to persuade those who have to make these decisions because by definition they should be risk-averse. They have our security at stake. So leaping forward a generation into the next generation of technology feels riskier, but I actually think would be far less risky. So these arguments are being argued fiercely among people of goodwill about what we need to do in Canada, in the spend that's coming over the next two years. Because we haven't had to spend like this in Canada on military technology.

since the sense of 40s, literally, is the last one. Five, just think about this for a second. I don't think Canadians truly get it. To reach 5% of our GDP, we would have to spend $150 billion a year. That would cut out a huge chunk of social spending in this country because we already have debt servicing obligations. So we'll be our second.

largest spend. It would be at the top of every budget. So we have to get this right. We have to get it relatively right. And we'll be back right after this. Well, if we needed any proof that your educational tentacles spread wide because you've been teaching for, I don't know, how long you've been teaching? 60 years? No. Wait a minute. Let me just think. Yeah, 60 years. That's Right. Okay. There you go. My math isn't so bad. No. Here we have a question from a guy named Steve Papagianus, who said, I took a course with Professor Stein back in the day. It was my first exposure to international politics, and I've been hooked ever since.

My question is, why does the European Union put up with so much nonsense from corrupt authoritarian member countries? So that's a great question. That is about Hungary, really, Victor Orban, who, has managed because here's the bigger problem with the European Union and relates back to the question that Mike asked earlier Steve. European Union works on consensus.

One country exercises a veto. Victor Orbat who did to the courts, what Donald Trump would like to do to the courts. You know,

essentially engineered a revolution from the top which curtailed many of the rights in Hungary change the political dynamics. He's up for election on Monday. It's not only in Canada that we have two by-elections, he is up for election, and this is the most consequential election in recent Hungarian history because for the first time he's trailing in the polls. what does this matter to the Europeans because Hungary vetoed the military aid appropriation for Ukraine

and the funding is tied up and governments are busy trying to fund it working around and it's completely inefficient why do they put up with this because the way their constitution works everybody has a veto what is this UN Security Council put up with five vetoes powers because in the design of the security in order to get the big powers in, they gave them a veto. That's why we're seeing institutional innovations, the kind of that Mark Carney talked about,

variable geometry, where you bring together like-minded and you don't empower everybody with a veto. And that's why any discussion of Canada joining the European Union, which is bubbling along right now in this country, I say that when people raise that with me, I say, first of all, do you understand what would happen to cheese because there's no more highly regulated cheese industry in the world than in the European Union all because of French brie? But leave aside the cheese for the moment. Who would want to join an organization where everybody has a veto?

Not me. Right. Who had that great line about how do you deal with a country that makes 120 different kinds of cheese? and each one is labeled and nobody else can use the label, right? Otherwise, you're in violation and you're into a deep regulatory process. Here's a question from our Patreon page, and this is from Mari, who's one of the great sponsors of our program. So thank you, Mari. A question to Janice.

Mari says, I remember being in her class at the monk school learning about the VUCA world model. VUCA meaning volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity. That is, in today's world where rational and strategic thinking is needed more than ever, what role does artificial intelligence play? How is this time different from all other major global conflicts that our species have seen previously? So, you know, this is a great question from Marchu. I think it's really important to recognize that we're in a time of huge uncertainty. Steve, and I'll tell you what it does to me. I answer a lot of questions.

I don't know, even when policymakers ask me, because some of the biggest mistakes we are likely to make are because we're overconfident and we don't acknowledge how uncertain the time is. And the second implication really is maybe rational, formal, rational decision-making is not what we need, frankly. You have to know a lot in order to make those kinds of decisions. So I tell everybody now, tell stories.

What are three possible stories? We just did that Steve together when we talked about what the future world order would look like. We said, well, you know, it could plausibly go three ways. And in the act of doing that, the next question I often ask people, well, what would have to happen to get us to world one or world two or world three? What would that look like? And then we get some early markers of which path we're on. I've said to our business leaders in this country, our political leaders,

we need to actually just embrace the uncertainty. Don't fight it. Embrace it. and then adapt the strategies you use to make your most consequential decisions. Take the one that we were just talking about. What kind of military technologies do we need? Well, I don't believe, you know, it's not going to be all Air Force with very expensive $100 million fighter aircraft.

It can't be when we live in a world of drones. And submarines are, you know, very expensive. we now have underwater smart technologies that are armed with weapons. We're just on the threshold that can poke a hole, frankly, in one of these. So embrace the uncertainty. Think about more than one possible world and buy a mixture when you don't know where we're going. Next question goes to Paul Boulas, who asks, Ask Dr. Stein what her predictions are about when China will rid itself of communism

and what she thinks a post-communist China might look like. There's an easy one for you, Janice. There's an easy one. So I'm going to say to Paul, I don't know, but I can tell you maybe two different stories about China. One, the one that I think is more likely, China's already rid itself of communism. If you look at the way China works,

it's an deeply authoritarian society. You know, it pays lift service. to communism. But in fact, one of the really fascinating things about China is how much of a competitive economy there exists in China. In some ways, and here's a counterintuitive thought, Steve, the barriers to competition are less in China than they are in Canada, where we have five or six big companies at the top, and we can name two or three sectors that look like that here, or

in the United States where we have, you know, 10 big AI companies that buy out small competitors before they grow to become bigger competitors. That's what's happening in China. So if we're looking at market competition as one measure of whether communism is any longer relevant to China, I would say it's not. It's over. Well, okay, I take your point as it relates to the economy. But when it comes to politics, it's still an authoritarian state, right?

Yeah. So I really think about China's an authoritarian state rather than a communist state. It's a deeply authoritarian state with a really entrenched political party that, you know, that ShishuPing controls. And we've seen he's purged political. He just perched a senior party member. He's perched all the ranks of the military. what Gigi Pange fears most is any competing center of political power. He's fine with the competitive economy,

but he cannot tolerate any center of competing political power. That's an old model of authoritarianism. This is not communist. All right. We've had questions come in from our Patreon page, from our Facebook page, and this one comes in from X, formerly Twitter, from Ian Hutchinson, who says, in a world where America withdraws, and the United States Navy

ceases to patrol the commons, are trade deals with overseas nations really of any benefit? The lack of a single Navy capable of ensuring free trade seems set to throw the world economy back to models from the 16th century. What do you say to Ian? Really good point. You know, for the last at least 200 years, Steve, first the British Navy, then the U.S. Navy enforced what you would call freedom of navigation in international waterways. And leave aside for a moment the energy consequences of Iran controlling the Straits of Hormuz. If this is how this war ends and it looks increasingly like the war will end with Iran and control the Straits of Hormuz, that is a powerful setback.

to any principle of freedom of navigation. It really is because the straits are an international waterway. Iran is on one side, but there are states on the other side, Gulf states on the other side. And so, in a sense, this is what is happening before our eyes, validates the question that what we could have here, are, you know, China's Navy could control the waters in the Pacific. Iran is going to control the waters in the Gulf, at least for the foreseeable future,

if this war were to stop tomorrow. It will not open by itself, as Donald Trump suggests. I mean, that's just magical thinking, frankly. The North Atlantic will probably be the best protected because the United States for the United States Navy. that's key. What happens to Northwest Passage in the Arctic? We've said it's ours. The United States says it's international. You can imagine dispute after dispute after dispute. And that's why what happens in the Straits of Parenthood was so important. It's an early indicator, Steve, of whether that principle is going to hold or not. And it really matters. Very good. Next question is from Jacob Citrin,

who I have to say is a hockey buddy of mine. And he's one of the few guys in that dressing room who loves to talk foreign affairs. So here we go. Something I would love Janice in your opinion on is with the war in Iran, I find it really difficult to know what is actually going on. Every source has a completely different narrative. Where do you get your information? What is your source of truth for this conflict and others? What a terrific question. That's the hardest issue that you have, Steve, that I have. You know, we share this as a journalist as an academic. We're looking for valid information all the time.

So one big thing happened during this war, which I don't think we talked about enough. One of the great things that happened over the last 10 years was we had private satellite imagery providers come into the marketplace. So Planet, for example, is a private satellite image company. If you subscribe to it and it's not that expensive, in your inbox on your computer in the morning is a satellite picture. And you can look at that satellite picture and you can make up your own mind. What does it show?

Right. The U.S. government asked Planet and several other providers to withdraw from the marketplace because they said their pictures could be used for battle damage assessment, which is true. They could be by or on. And these providers withdrew from the market. So for me, I am deprived of a really critical, independent, visual source of information, which has really helped me to get above the noise. So what do I do now?

I read everybody's media. And it takes a huge amount of time. I read Iranian media. I read Saudi media. I read U.S. media. Russian media pops up. Fortunately, I have a wonderful student who helps me with all this. It's aggregates a lot for me,

but it's critically important to move beyond the media in one country and be dependent on the media, no matter how good it is, like the New York Times, great reporters on the ground, right? The FT, the Financial Times, great job. But you have to move out of the media of only one country and read media from a variety of countries. If you can't independently visually get the pictures that were so useful before. Jacob has really put his finger on something that I think an American senator named

Hiram Johnson says, said more than 100 years ago, which is the first casualty in war is truth. Truth. Yeah. Often the problem. What do you do see? Because you're the one who asked the questions. So you have to be really, really informed to ask the questions.

What do you do to get ready? Everything. I read everything I can get my hands on. And I know there are people who, for example, say, how can you watch Fox? Well, I do watch Fox. Of course you watch Fox. Of course you watch. Other people say, how can you watch MS now?

Well, I do watch that. and, you know, CNN and our all news cable channels and, of course, all of our legacy media here in Canada and New York Times and Washington Post. And, yeah, I spend so much of my day as you do, you know, trying to figure out what's going on there. Yeah, from a wide variety of sources for sure. That's what we all have to do. And I say even to individual citizens like your buddy who is interested in porn affairs, read at least or watch at least two channels. that are at opposite ends of the spectrum. So at least you're hearing two narrative, right?

No matter how difficult you find it, you've got to do it. Absolutely. Get out of the echo chamber. Yeah. Here's a question from Steve Stober, who says the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 brought the United States and the former Soviet Union closer to nuclear war than ever before. My question to Janice Stein is, given the longstanding trade embargo and current precarious state of affairs with the United States and the Trump administration's desire for regime change, why doesn't Cuba turn to Russia again to come to its aid? Having the passage of a Russian oil

tanker into Cuban waters is a start, but can it go further? And if so, what are the implications signed your former student at McGill in 1974, who took an interest in Cuba from that point onwards and has many artist friends on the island? There you go, Janice. More of your students coming out of the four. You know what? You must admit this is the greatest privilege in the world, right? To have students all over the country like this. I always call this the best return on investment in the world.

It's just, you know, it's a privilege. So yet, you know, Cuba is unfolding as all eyes are on the straits of four moves. And there is a major crisis in Cuba unfolding. No oil has reached Cuba until recently huge. blackouts, you know, people can't cook. The medical system is having trouble function. So a Russian tanker loaded with oil. Now, Donald Trump had, he could have said, yes, you can go ahead, or he could have said, no, no way, there's a blockade. We are not allowing any oil through. Well, this is Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump together. The famous duo, Donald Trump says,

it's fine, go right through. And the Russians are set, they're setting a second tanker of oil. So here they are the two of them navigating the boundaries of it's possible. If the goal, Donald Trump's and Marco Rubio is really the principal driver of this one. If the goal was to starve the Cuban regime into submission, well, you don't let oil tankers through except if they're Vladimir Putin. But oil is one thing, weapons is another. Where does he draw the line? interestingly enough we already seen some changes in Cuba that were so preoccupied with the Middle East that nobody's talking about. 2,000 political prisoners were released just a few days ago by the Cuban regime.

That's in response to this fierce pressure. And it's very clear after what happened in Venezuela. Russia did not come to the defense of Venezuela. and Dulce Rodriguez is now Donald Trump's BFF. Right. She, that's the way he talks about her. And in Cuba as well, Ukraine is so obsessively important to Donald, to Vladimir Putin. He's not going to risk.

He's disappointed in Vladimir. Vladimir Putin is disappointed already in Donald Trump, but his best game is to continue to separate Donald Trump from Europe, he's not going to put that relationship at risk over Cuba or over Venezuela. Ukraine trumps it all for him. Janice, I have left the most, I think, difficult to answer, most profoundly problematic question for the last one here. And this is from someone that you and I both know well.

His name is Jeffrey Koppstein. He's the dean's professor of political science at the University of California. Irvine, also used to work at the Monk School with you, also serves as director of the Center for Jewish Studies at UC Irvine. And here's his question. And I think this one may actually be beyond even your expertise, Janice. So let's go. Will Toronto bagels ever surpass the quality of Montreal's? Oh, thanks so much, Jeff, for that great question. And this is a very, very serious issue and we might have thrown New York into this discussion too. There's no hope that Toronto Babels will ever be. It's easy. Begin to approach Montreal bagels when I left. When I came

from Montreal to Toronto in the early 70s, I did into something that somebody called a bagel and I turned to a Trotonian and said, what is this? And it remains, it remains a fluffy, soft, interior with what masquerades as a crust. Very little salt,

completely different from what it is, truly deserves the name of, if this were the European Union, coming back to our early discussion of cheese, see, a Toronto bagel would not ever be allowed, they would not be allowed, allowed to call it even.

All right? Because here's the difference for the scientists who are interested. In Montreal, the bakers boil the bagel before they put it in this, in that, in an oven, which is a real wood burning oven. But you have to boil them so you get these dense, chewy texture, which is quintessential for any bagel. Not a chance is, we'll never have that. I think if we want to extend the comparison to New York where they do, Montreal bagels are the very best in the world. They beat New York bagels.

Well, I'm just delighted to be able to say that, thankfully, we still live in a democracy where you don't have to choose and we have the benefit of being able to have both, which is a wonderful thing. Now, do you have a preference, Steve? Yeah, I do. Putting him on the spot here. I do have a preference, and I'm, I do have a preference. sorry to say that I think Toronto bagels are better.

And I'm, and Janice, and you should be saying the same thing, having left Montreal and now making your living in Toronto. But anyway. It has nothing to do with civic pride. Montreal bagels are the best in the world. And one of the things we're probably have to do in June is have a blind bakeoff where we put some judges in the room and we taste bagels with and without whatever we want to put on them and we can come back and tell our listeners who's right you or me i will table that to our

next editorial meeting and incidentally geoffrey also said one other thing here he he said i already knew the answer to this question of mike mark minceva by the way which is which is a joke we should just bring everybody in on because once upon a time you and i used to do a show called studio two for tv o and jeff cobbstein was a frequent contributor to that show and there became at some point a bit of a competition to see whether you or he or another guest actually came out against George W. Bush's war in Iraq first. And, you know, one of you was saying, well, even before, you know, Bush launched this attack, I was against it. And somebody else would say, well, even before he got the intelligence that launched the attack, I was against it. And then Koppstein came out and said, well, at my

Burmitsva, in my Burmitsva speech, I indicated I was against it. So that's the history of that show. there. Yeah. Janice, let me do a little business here before we thank you and say goodbye. I want to remind everybody

that we've got a Patreon page here. Patreon.com forward slash the Paken podcast. You know, one of the things I get asked all the time is, when are you going to start

charging for this podcast? And my answer is always the same. Never. We're never going to charge short. We want it to be free, but we are truly grateful to those who want to put

a few bucks up every month in order to help us to fray costs and keep it free to those who want it that way. And to that end, I'm delighted to say that a former Ontario NDP cabinet minister named Anne Swarbrick has now become a little member of our little Patreon community. And what I liked about this is that we'd already had a contribution from Gillian Smith, who was a former progressive conservative candidate a couple of elections ago. And a former liberal cabinet minister, Charles Beer, who in the late 1980s was in David Peterson's cabinet, he also gave us some support.

and now Anne Swerbrook of the NDP. So you can see we're a very ecumenical operation here. Patreon.com forward slash the Paken podcast. All of our shows are archived at Steve Paken.com. Janice, this was a lot of fun. Maybe because it worked so well, we might sprinkle a few Janice-only shows amidst those where we invite a guest to come on and debate with you.

So glad you could do this and thanks so much. And you know what, Steve, maybe we should let our listeners in on a little secret before. we went on the air, you and I had a detailed discussion about baseball and told Joe as one does. Yes, of course. That's right. So we had to limit the laughter in the first few minutes. So I think that may have contributed here to the fact that we ended up with a wonderful, funny question at the end of this.

Amen to that. And with that, peace and love, everybody. And we'll see you next time. Bye, everyone.